Trio of bases-loaded walks does in Pirates in road loss to Brewers
Pittsburgh Pirates starter Chase De Jong termed his four walks in five innings Friday as “definitely more than you’d ever want.”
Imagine what he thought when Clay Holmes matched that — in only a third of an inning.
The normally reliable Pirates bullpen imploded during a six-walk seventh inning in which Holmes and Trevor Cahill issued three consecutive free passes with the bases loaded, all but handing the Milwaukee Brewers a 7-4 home win Friday.
“I just think we struggled with our command tonight,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said after the game. “Our bullpen has been so consistent and so good that when they do have an outing like this, (it happens).”
Milwaukee’s improbable five-run seventh in which a ball barely left the infield was in stark contrast to a Pirates’ offense that launched a trio of laser-beam home runs.
Another game in the life of the 2021 Pirates, who have a losing streak of at least five games for the fourth time over the first 62 games of the season.
Ben Gamel, Gregory Polanco and Ke’Bryan Hayes had well-struck homers for the Pirates. The blasts by Gamel and Polanco came off of Brandon Woodruff, who came in with the second-best home runs allowed rate in MLB at 0.474 per nine innings. They were pulled deep to right in the second and sixth innings, respectively, with exit velocities of 103.5 and 109.2 mph.
Woodruff had the majors’ third-best ERA (1.42) and best WHIP (0.74), but he was largely dueled to a stalemate by the unheralded De Jong.
Making his third start for the Pirates since signing as a minor-league free agent over the offseason and throwing 20 innings in Triple-A, De Jong limited the Brewers to two runs on four hits in five innings.
“We threw a lot of good (fastballs),” De Jong said, referencing backup catcher Michael Perez, “but being able to glove-strike the curveball early in the count and then expand with it and get weaker contact like we were able to (Friday) was really the reason why we were able to cover five and keep the team in the game. It was because I was able to command that breaking ball early and then throw better ones later in the count.”
The biggest blemish on De Jong’s line was four walks. But Holmes would match over a span of seven batters faced.
Shelton lifted lefty Sam Howard after Howard retired each of the four batters he faced upon entering the game in the sixth. In came Holmes, who hadn’t been charged with an earned run in almost two months covering 17 appearances and 17⅓ innings.
“He’s been really good for us,” Shelton said. “(Friday), he just didn’t have his best stuff and wasn’t in the zone.”
Holmes couldn’t find the plate, throwing only 10 strikes among his 25 pitches (plus an intentional walk). Two of those 10 strikes were hit for an infield single by Luis Urias and a peculiar two-run double by former NL MVP Christian Yelich.
Holmes couldn’t snag Yelich’s grounder just to his left of the mound, and the ball also found its way through diving Pirates middle infielders Erik Gonzalez and Adam Frazier. Yelich hustled his way into second after Daniel Robertson and Urias scored.
After a Holmes strikeout of Avisail Garcia and the intentional walk of Omar Narvaez, the real fun began for Milwaukee.
Willy Adames walked on four pitches. Shelton called on Cahill to make his debut as a reliever for the Pirates — and Cahill promptly walked Jace Peterson and Jackie Bradley to make it 7-2.
According to the Pirates’ AT&T SportsNet television broadcast, it marked the first time in 37 years the Pirates issued three consecutive bases-loaded walks.
The Pirates pulled to within two runs in the eighth when with Gonzalez aboard Hayes hit one over the fence in fair territory for the fourth time in 10 games this season (albeit one he hit Tuesday didn’t count as a home run when he famously missed first base).
But the Brewers’ Josh Hader worked around a Bryan Reynolds pinch-hit single in the ninth to earn his 15th save.
Love baseball? Stay up-to-date with the latest Pittsburgh Pirates news.
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.